BEWARE OF PEER PRESSURE

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?”

Galatians 2:11-14 NLT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

It’s easy to give way to peer pressure. Too easy.

You know what this looks like, right?

It’s when you know there’s a certain way to live, a way that is right and righteous in the Lord’s eyes but then you find yourself living against the grain of others. The world’s direction is working in direct conflict to the path you are walking, sometimes in a way that creates a collision course scenario. This puts you in a difficult place, one that creates this challenging dilemma:

Do I compromise my values in such a way to avoid a clash of values or do I stand firm and fight for what I know the Lord wants, unwilling to waver my firm commitment to Him, His will, and His way?

As we continue our look at the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, a chapter where the Apostle provides a testimonial on his life before and after coming to follow Jesus, we see where this matter of giving into peer pressure at the expense of staying true to Christian values and principles isn’t just a modern day phenomenon. For even Peter, the disciple Jesus called the “rock” He would build His church upon, found himself giving into forces moving in a way counter to the genuine Gospel.

These forces in play were Jewish Christians who were unwilling to surrender the ways of the Old Testament that were grounded in compliance to Jewish law for the New Testament salvation plan of simply believing in Jesus to be saved. A big part of this altered approach to the Gospel was that men should still be circumcised, an act that separated Jews from non-Jews (aka Gentiles) since the days of Abraham. Although God’s new covenant through Jesus opened up salvation and the opportunity for eternal life to all people, a large number of Jewish Christians continued to press the circumcision requirement and their influence was obviously powerful.

We know this because the aforementioned Peter, who used to dedicate time to dine with Gentiles when he arrived in Antioch, suddenly parted company with them because of the criticism he received from the Jewish Christians who “insisted on the necessity of circumcision”. And as soon as Peter broke company with the Gentiles, so too did other Jewish believers which included Barnabas. All went astray because they gave into peer pressure and abandoned the true Gospel.

This obviously didn’t sit well with Paul who confronted Peter and put him on the spot in front of others asking:

“Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?”

In other words, he was asking, “Why are you giving into peer pressure and compromising the real Gospel, the Gospel Jesus taught us?

It was a question grounded in accountability, one Peter and the others needed to hear.

It’s also a question we need to hear today, right?

For how often do we find the church today, compromising the scriptures, the very word of God, because of outside societal pressures?

Unfortunately, it’s happening way too often, I would argue more the norm than the exception and I often find myself wondering how our Lord feels about it.

You see, the Lord didn’t create the church so that it would change itself to comply with the ways of the world. Rather, the church was designed by the Lord and His word to transform the world toward His values.

Paul was firmly devoted to the latter while Peter allowed himself to be categorized with the former. He wasn’t afraid to stand up for the true Gospel, even when it put his life at risk. Like Jesus, he refused to surrender the principles set forth by the Father for anything the world was pushing. He was unwilling to give into peer pressure and we need to follow his lead today.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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